tar

Sharel Cassity is a PHENOMAL jazz saxophonist by night, and an incredible RHEL Sysadmin by day: she works for Google by day, and she leads her jazz quartet by night. Her RHEL Server at Google is Sax_Server_023, and her username is jazz_lady_01@google.com. Sharel is a TRUE professional, so she NEVER runs commands as root. He task today: teach 12 new Google hires how to use tar to both archive and compress files and folders. Please show ten diverse examples of the tar command usage so that her students are exposed to a wide range of possible uses. Please explain each command, and its associated flags.

Certainly! Here are ten diverse examples of using the tar command that Sharel Cassity can teach her students, along with explanations of each command and its associated flags:

1. Creating a Tar Archive:
   • tar -cvf archive.tar file1 file2 file3
   • This command creates a tar archive named archive.tar containing file1, file2, and file3. The -c flag indicates the creation mode, and the -v flag enables verbose output during the process.
2. Creating a Tar Archive and Compressing it with Gzip:
   • tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory
   • This command creates a tar archive named archive.tar of the directory and compresses it using gzip (-z flag). The resulting file is archive.tar.gz. The -v flag enables verbose output.
3. Extracting a Tar Archive:
   • tar -xvf archive.tar
   • This command extracts the contents of archive.tar while displaying verbose output (-v flag). The -x flag indicates the extraction mode.
4. Extracting a Compressed Tar Archive:
   • tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz
   • This command extracts the contents of a gzip-compressed tar archive (archive.tar.gz) with verbose output (-v flag). The -x flag indicates extraction, and the -z flag specifies gzip compression.
5. Listing the Contents of a Tar Archive:
   • tar -tvf archive.tar

   • This command lists the contents of archive.tar without extracting it. The -t flag denotes the listing mode.

6. Adding Files to an Existing Tar Archive:
   • tar -rvf archive.tar additional_file
   • This command appends additional_file to the existing archive.tar. The -r flag indicates appending or updating the archive.
7. Extracting a Single File from a Tar Archive:
   • tar -xvf archive.tar path/to/file
   • This command extracts only path/to/file from archive.tar, preserving the directory structure.
8. Creating a Tar Archive while Preserving Permissions:
   • tar -cvpf archive.tar --same-permissions directory
   • This command creates a tar archive (archive.tar) of directory while preserving the file permissions (--same-permissions flag). The -p flag preserves permissions, ownership, and timestamps.
9. Excluding Files and Directories from a Tar Archive:
   • tar -cvf archive.tar --exclude=directory_to_exclude file1 file2
   • This command creates a tar archive (archive.tar) excluding directory_to_exclude while including file1 and file2. The --exclude flag specifies the directory to exclude.
10. Creating a Tar Archive with a Specific Compression Level:
    • tar -czvf archive.tar.gz --gzip-compression-level=9 directory
    • This command creates a tar archive (archive.tar) of directory and compresses it with gzip using compression level 9 (highest level of compression). The resulting file is archive.tar.gz.

By teaching these diverse examples, Sharel Cassity can provide her students with a comprehensive understanding of different use cases and variations of the tar command, along with the associated flags and their functionalities.